Silver the air
And all the cloudy trees
Building along the sky
A filmy frieze!
The grass is wet
And tremulous with silver threads that shake
Pellucid drops
Among the thrusting mushroom-tops.
the lake
Is lost in silver nothingness --
Wan, leaden, large,
Void of all life and form
Save at the cold grey marge
Where spectral rushes lean
Mirrored in silver grass and green.
Out on the flats the little hollows hold
Pale silver brimming clear and cold.
The huddled farmhouse-roofs take shape
Through silver curling fold on fold.
Each fence is swathed in silver floss.
Each pathway makes a silver stroke
Where the dim cattle go across
Rimmed in silver smoke.
And hark!
Under the silver arc
Of sky the magpies sing! --
A song mysterious, remote,
Each long-drawn note
Seeming as though 'twere flung
From some high silver tower that hung
In quivering space --
A place
With airy battlements empearled,
Whose silver pinnacles enlace
Some lost enchanted world.
First published in The Bulletin, 20 May 1936
